


To Make a Song and Dance About

by Dragoneisha



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Musicals, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Theatre, musical numbers, what if superpowers were just super dumb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 15:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14876015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragoneisha/pseuds/Dragoneisha
Summary: The only thing worse than being powerless is being powerful in a perfectly useless fashion.But everything can eventually, find its use. Eridan Ampora sets his heart on one of his own, and in his usual stubborn fashion, reaches for it in grasping hands. The world is his oyster - he just has to sing it open first.





	To Make a Song and Dance About

This is the worst power to have.

Eridan knew it. His father knew it. His mother knew it, God rest her soul, or not, not like she ever did anything for him. But it was the one he had, and he was going to make use of it. Even if it was silly. Even if it made him shudder to use. Even if it was the worst, stupidest, most demeaning power ever to exist, in the whole wide world.

Even if he had wanted to be a _scientist_. 

So as a little boy, before anyone really acknowledged his voice, while he still had the time, he went out on his own to practice. He ducked out of his room, and down the hall, past his slumbering dog with its drooling maw, past the room of his brother with his dulcet tones, and out the back door, closing it behind him. He padded out on soft feet and through the backyard, through the gate, through the trees, now. Into the forest - if this could be called a forest. 

A copse of trees, a few sparse bushes, and the back of a library on the other side. Though Eridan loved tracking through to there, it’s not where he was going this time. He considered going further, ducking into the library and poring over some stupid book, anything that would get his mind off of what he had come out here to do. But he didn't. He pushed those thoughts aside, and slowed before exiting this little forest, like it was anything at all but pretty scenery for the nice neighborhood. It was fake. It would still serve his purposes. He settled, in the midst of the trees. 

“Wh _at-_ "

Eridan blinked, and cleared his throat. He was young, and nervous, and a little scared of what he thought was about to happen. His voice giving out on him was… natural.

He wanted to cry about it anyway.

But boys don’t cry, like his papa always told him, so he stood straighter and wiped his eyes, ignored the little salty flecks on his glasses from blinking away the tears. Eridan breathed. A moment, another. He was delaying, but - he had to do it sometime.

“Wh - at do you do, with a drunken sailor…”

The forest around him went still. One could put that up to an annoying human voice. It meant nothing. Yet. 

“What do you do with a drrunken sailor….” A cardinal alighted on a branch above, eyes on the small, singing boy. He addressed the next verse to it personally. “What d’yadowith a drunken sailor -”

The cardinal whistled along.

“Earl-eye in the -”

“Morning.” The silhouetted form of Dualscar finished the verse, chin ticking up just enough to case a shadow over Eridan’s wide, scared eyes when he whipped around. The rest of the song died in his slim little throat, but the cardinal leapt from the branch and spiraled, in perfect time with the tune. It took a moment for the villain’s steel-toed boot to stop tapping its toe, at which point, he cleared his throat. “At least no one’s gonna be sneakin’ up on ya when you’re carryin’ a tune, kid.”

The cardinal took longer to leave, the tune falling flat on its birdy notes before it fluttered away and out of the tiny pocket of trees. Eridan wanted to watch it go, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the man in front of him. Theatrics. Always theatrics. Everything just looked right for him, all the time - the way the setting sun hid the details of him, how his cape caught the breeze _just_ so. Even the slightly campy look of his costume became sinister when he wore it. Why couldn’t he get something like that?

Maybe it was envy, at seeing what the power looked like so pure, after he’d come out to try and test it himself. To see what things going right for you really looked like, without the warped add-ons Eridan could already sense, even as a little boy. It would get worse, as he aged, bt he had no way of knowing that.

All he knew was that he’d done wrong, and it didn’t take Dualscar’s semi-strengthened presence to make him feel sorry.

“I -”

“ ‘Was told not to practice’,” Dualscar finished for him, the LEDs behind his mask’s eyeslits narrowing to mimic his hidden expression. “Weren’t ya?” He didn’t wait for an answer before he approached.

The strong arms of Eridan’s father scooped him up without preamble. Eridan squeaked out a sorry, eyes already watering again. Dualscar pushed on anyway. “Kid, yer gonna get caught, an’ if you get caught, y’gotta register your shit.” Little fingers fisted against polished steel. Dualscar ignored it. “You get put on a list, you’ll never have a life like we like again, yeah?”

Eridan sniffled.

“Yeah,” Dualscar finished his own question, gruff voice as stern with Eridan as a teacher would be with an unruly student. “An’ you know I ain’t forgivin’ ya if ya get me caught.”

“I know, Papa.”

“It ain’t like it’s much of a jump from… this, to me.”

“I know, Papa.”

“You gotta be careful.”

“It’s not my _fffault_ , Papa.”

That, at least, gave Dualscar pause - one he used to settle in, do a neat about-face, and carry his unruly son back towards home. He seemed to consider it, to Eridan’s young eyes, which peeked above his shoulder plating with an intense look of self-righteousness.

“.. Nah, it ain’t.” A gauntleted hand clapped Eridan’s back, knocking the breath out of him. “This one’s on your mother.”

The door shut behind them without another word, enforced by mutual understanding and the weighty fear the villain carried with him everywhere.

Eridan wanted that terrifying mantle then, more than anything else in the world. But it was the first time he understood that he could never have it - because he had the worst power, the stupidest power, the most inane, idiotic power ever conceived.

But it was his, and he was going to make it worth something.

**Author's Note:**

> time to give eridan ampora a dumb superpower because i like him and its fun
> 
> this is to be continued but likely sparingly unless i get like CRAZY feedback lol. open to suggestions! my first chapter work, so wish me luck! <3


End file.
